Iain Murray

Yesterday was a good day. It started with a call from my good friend Chris. We have this arrangement whereby he phones me from time to time and I phone him once a year. (It's a little like the arrangement with my dad, though less equal, where we phone each other when we are totally embarrassed it's been so long).

It was good then to go on to the Westminster Fellowship. Iain Murray spoke. About 30 of us were present.

He first gave us a word of exhortation. He saw three great needs at the present time - Less confidence in ourselves, increased and persevering faith in God and continued prayer for and working to revival. He said lots of wise and helpful things some of which, such as the need to pray more and meditate on Scripture more, chimed in very much with my own current thinking.

He then spoke on unction. First he said what it was not. It is not to do with buildings, voice, gifts such as oratory, length of sermon, how good the sermon is technically, church office, etc. Rather it is the evident presence of God felt by preacher and congregation. It is preaching that is marked by a focus on Christ and love for men. He quoted from James Garretson's book on Archibald Alexander later. I think it is the quote that speaks of the necessity of

"that solemnity which arises from the fear of God; and that affectionate manner, termed unction which arises from a deep feeling of the truth and importance and excellence of what he utters from the Word of God. This qualification, which is nothing else but piety in a lively exercise, is of the utmost importance to good and useful preaching. . . . Without it he may be a good preacher, a splendid orator . . . . but there will be an essential defect in his sermons; the right spirit will be wanting. And while the multitude may be pleased and the refined gratified, the hearers will not be edified, nor sinners converted."

Amongst hindrances to unction he mentioned a lack of pastoral work, grieving the Spirit, a lack of holiness. Unction involves feelings, it is a experience but faith is at its heart.

After lunch we spoke about the subject and as I might have expected things became less clear. I think it's one of those subjects that because it involves a certain amount of subjectivity is not easy to discuss. There are great mysteries here. One man spoke of his very limited success in the UK and yet (with the same material) great success overseas. Someone contrasted the spectacularly successful but otherwise disastrous Jonah with Isaiah and Jeremiah who though much better examples saw very limited success. It is very easy to be dismissive of the whole idea of unction but I'm sure that is a mistake.

The new programme for Westminster was available. A little lacking in inspiration I'm afraid.

After that I went on to the Evangelical Library for our committee. Things proceed slowly as ever. We look to the Lord.

Then home to the family. Put the youngest boys to bed (for once). We read about the crossing of the Jordan from a family Bible story book we have.